The present invention relates to the field of information technology, including, more particularly, to systems and techniques for securing documents.
Many important documents exist on paper and within physical file systems. For example, there are document warehouses where millions upon millions of pieces of paper are kept. It can be very difficult and time-consuming to search and retrieve such physical documents. Some examples of documents that may be stored in a physical warehouse include patient medical records, financial records (e.g., home mortgage applications, annual reports, securities and exchange (SEC) filings), insurance claims, product manuals, research papers, drawings (e.g., technical drawings, architectural drawings, engineering drawings, or manufacturing drawings), and others.
There is a desire to convert paper-based documents into digital formats. Information that is in a digital format can be more easily and efficiently searched, moved, and shared. It cuts both ways. Information in a digital format can also be subject to more improper access including improper viewing, distribution, and copying. Existing techniques rely on penalties (e.g., civil penalties or criminal penalties) to regulate a person's behavior. For example, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPA) provides punishment for improperly accessing a patient's medical records. However, this is insufficient because a person willing to risk punishment may still access the document. Manual review of the documents to determine the security policy to assign can be a very expensive and time-consuming process.
Thus, there is a need to provide systems and techniques to automate the assignment of protection to documents.